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First off, thanks ahead for opening this topic and greater thanks in advance for any helpful posts. Well I am still in highschool and hoping to go into game dev after a little more school. I hope to become a gamedesigner or directer but I also want to be well versed in the technical aspects. I've been trying to teach myself C++ in my spare time and I have a decent knowledge for what I have read so far. However I'm not sure if the book is for me. I bought C++ From The Ground Up by Herbert Schildt (third edition if it matters) and though I now have a good knowledge of the structure and how to write the language, it does not seem to teach anything really imperative to making games. I tried to shy away from "Game Programming" books because I did not want to learn any bad habits, but is it better to get these then something that just goes over the language in general?

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Well i am not sure this is really gona help you but may give some perspective.

Programing a peice of software that is to do logical operstations is much easyer then that of a game. A game is just a more complexe operation i do not think there are really any bad habits just bad ways of coding things and not safe ways of doing things.

Think about it this way the more you read the more diverse your knoledge will bei do not belive there is any one set way of doing something so sticking away of game programing books is mabye not the best thing to do if you want to learn some of the technical details for game programing.

In the end i guess what i am trying to say is do not limit yourself if your going to be in design then i do not think you will be coding. but it will give youa rough understanding and mabye apprecieate what others do.

I recommend that you read a game programing book or just some tutorials.game programing is complexe and dynamic tyr and keep that in mind.

2) Beginners should generally not read game-programming-specific books, because

a) Decent books specifically for beginners will *usually* have a "game programming" emphasis anyway (that said, the one I am recommending here does not); after all, these people understand the target audience, and few beginning programmers want to make the next greatest office tools suite, as compared to the next greatest MMO :)

b) There is quite little in programming that is specific to games, and that stuff tends to be either stuff you could figure out on your own, or special considerations for optimization (which beginners should not worry about; it interferes with the task of actually learning to program).

3) Strongly reconsider your choice of language. What is your current motivation for choosing C++? If you just want to stick with what is "dominant in the games industry", consider that it may well not be by the time you are finished university. (Oh, and in the current market, you are probably going to want at least a bachelor's degree; sorry.)